Navalny pairs with ex-PM Kasyanov for forthcoming elections

The Party of Progress headed by anti-corruption activist Aleksey Navalny has announced a strategic union with the RPR-Parnas party led by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and invited all “people of good will” to run on their election lists.

Kasyanov and Navalny released a joint public statement on Friday
saying that the Party of Progress and the Republican Party of
Russia – Party of People’s Freedom (RPR-Parnas) were forming
joint lists of candidates both for the municipal and regional
elections that will be held in 2015 and the federal parliamentary
elections due in 2016.

The politicians promised that in the nearest future they would
agree on and show the public the mechanism for choosing
candidates for the joint list. They also emphasized their project
was open not only for members of their parties but for all
“people of good will” who share their values.

Russian law allows political parties to include non-members in
elections lists. In the latest parliamentary elections the
majority United Russia party included about 150 candidates from
the public movement United People’s Front in their elections
lists, and many of these candidates later received seats in the
State Duma.

The Party of Progress was officially registered by the Justice
Ministry in February 2014, after a lengthy row with
environmentalists and freemasons, who claimed they had more
rights for the project’s initially-intended name. In February, it
held a major convention in which Navalny announced plans to run
in the maximum possible number of regional polls and to
participate in the 2016 State Duma elections. However, Navalny’s
allies have failed to register enough regional offices in time
and so far can’t run in federal polls on their own.

The alliance with RPR Parnas gives the Party of Progress such an
opportunity because the latter has representation in regional
legislature and can run for State Duma seats even without
gathering supporters’ signatures.

Navalny’s party hugely relies on their leader’s popularity as an
anti-corruption activist and blogger. His vocal statements and
independent investigations have been marred by the fact that
Navalny himself became a suspect in several cases of graft and
embezzlement, was convicted twice and received suspended
sentences.

The activist has always maintained his innocence and said that
all cases against him had been fabricated by the authorities, who
wanted to silence him and feared political competition.

The PARNAS initially existed as a non-system opposition movement
headed by several people who held major government posts during
the Yeltsin Era, including ex-PM Mikhail Kasyanov and ex-deputy
PM Boris Nemtsov. It held its first foundation congress in 2010,
but was denied registration for technical reasons and eventually
merged with the Republican Party of Russia led by veteran
politician and parliamentarian Vladimir Ryzhkov. The move gave
the opposition a political platform, but in February this year
Ryzhkov and several of his long-term allies left the joint party.
It caused a scandal when they accused Kasyanov and Nemtsov of
hijacking his project. Two weeks later Boris Nemtsov was shot
dead in Moscow in an apparent contract hit. The investigation
into this assassination is ongoing.